Shadow of the Valley
by Disguise of Carnivorism
Summary: Eden is nothing but a garden of tombstones and bones. Light Yagami isn't entirely certain he approves.
1. Chapter 1

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_Shadow of the Valley_

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The stone angels and tombstones see him as an old man taking a stroll through the graveyard, his amber eyes dark with thought and schemes as he passes under their wings. They see the aura of power that laces his footsteps; they see a stoniness in his eyes unbefitting of a man his age. He looks older than he is—it is his eyes, shrouded in shadows, they think, that add the years to his features. For haggard as he is, he still has the features of his youth; his age is not expressed in wrinkles.

Or so the stone angels think as his thin fingers brush against their faces. They can taste the ink running down his hands—it smells of death, and they can see it running through his veins the way blood once did. He has become, in his power, something more than what he used to be.

His lips twitch into a smile as he begins to whistle his way through, dancing on the graves of his victims. A city built on the bones and rotting corpses of the dead—the stone angels can see their decaying flesh beneath his feet. It is his city, his Jerusalem, the beacon of light in the New World. They remember the day he erected them, making an example of their poor dead occupants.

It was a reminder, he said. He never said who he was reminding—himself, his people, or his poor wife and daughter. He never told them, but they saw the lightening in his eyes and thought better than to ask. Better to be made of stone so as not face his wrath; better not to be a human struggling beneath his far-seeing eyes.

He is far older than he dares to show. His world is built on death and the dying. They still fear him; his shadow is too dark and too great for them to escape any longer. Their hope diminished with his. They are tired, the murderer and his victims—they are tired of their endless waltz. God and the damned, they are growing bored and old. He is finding it harder, the ecstasy of the Notebook beneath his hand, the scratching of a name in a ballpoint pen.

Instead, he looks out his window and stares at the moon. The stone angels have seen him standing there, the somber expression etched into his eyes. He has become stone, just as they have. The white marble of his skin glows beneath the starlight. Only his eyes remain dark and weary. His humanity has lost itself within those amber pools. Somewhere, they'll find the boy he once was—deep within his memory, that boy must still exist.

He meanders through their ranks, ignoring their curious faces. His path seems nonexistent as he weaves through the tombstones, listening to his own hollow whistling. He doesn't appear to be looking for anything in particular; he stops now and then, smiles at a name, and moves on. He carries no roses or other sentimentalities—he can't afford such weaknesses. Though his people have never seen his face, and most likely never will, he still has the habit ground into him. The memory of the gothic L takes far too long to die. The stone angels wonder which one of them has come to guard the detective's corpse from the world.

He is not looking for them; he does not appear to be looking for anything. He is wandering in mind and in body. The wind has created his course and he follows it diligently with a wry smile and somber eyes. They can't help but wonder where his path will lead him next

_our Father_

His arms are filled with his newly born daughter, but his mind is far away as his wife squeals with joy. She cries at the sight of their daughter, insisting that he should be proud, that he should be glad.

He merely looks at her and nods absently; his thoughts are occupied by far heftier matters than an infant. But he obliges his cooing wife, if only for a moment, and looks into the child's cloudy eyes. He sees nothing of himself within their depths, but still he stares at his own reflection through their haze.

He sighs as the hospital bustles about him and finally, ever so slowly, his mind turns toward the child in his arms. He is not as delusional as L to believe himself immortal and spend so little thought on his successors. Kira feels the weight of his years like a cloak about his shoulders and he feels the hand of time ticking along with the Shinigami's laughter. He feels his death waiting, and while his power grows, he knows he is not immortal. His life is spinning away like thread at the hands of Fate, and he does not have the means to stop it. He is not as young as he used to be. The invigoration that had possessed him within the first year of his reign is ending and he finds himself standing at the edge of the world attempting to maintain his balance.

He looks up from the child and out the open window, watching his steadily-growing kingdom and wondering what kind of being would be suited to take his place. They must be ruthless, heartless, but never dark enough to drive others off. Kira, unlike L, is a position of charm; it involves bending the world around his fingers. L hadn't had to worry about social niceties when picking out his own heir.

He didn't, in fact. Near (never L) would have made a terrible Kira—he was too isolated from the world. He would never have the power to manipulate those working with him; if he had to work from scratch, as Light had, he would have failed before he started. Mello was charismatic but self-destructive; he thought with his anger and betrayal rather than with his head, which in turn had gotten him killed. Both of them were dead because they weren't as good as L or Kira; they were dead because they were smug little imposters playing at a game far beyond their understanding.

Mikami, despite what he thought in that warehouse, or the day when Light sent him the Death Note with a list of instructions, was never fit to be the true Kira. Mikami will always and forever be Light's pawn, until the day Light decides it is time to dispose of him. Mikami's passion and faith is dangerous for a true Kira, but useful for a pawn. With his faith, he can be manipulated—and Light's heir must avoid manipulation at all costs.

Takada had also never been capable of being his heir—she was too easily wooed, too vain to exist without some man attempting to steal her power from her. And then there was the fact that Light just didn't particularly _like _Takada. He felt little remorse when penning the words that would burn her to death. The only people close to suitable candidates are Misa—and L himself.

L was the obvious choice, if the pieces had been arranged differently. Despite his complete lack of charm, he still could manipulate almost as well as Light himself. He lied easily, he sacrificed easily—he was completely and utterly without conscience. The transition would have been so easy; it makes Light grin and chuckle every time he thinks of it.

But despite L's sheer potential, the pieces were arranged in the wrong position. It was impossible for Light to even dream of attempting to convert L. The detective was stubborn and would rather die before he groveled before Light. It wasn't ethics or morals that kept L battering against him—it was the fact that he couldn't stand to lose.

Misa was the second choice that had crossed Light's mind. She may not be as brilliant as he desires, but she can hold her own in the world of detectives and murderers. She proved herself years ago at the hands of L's torture; she is loyal and would rather die than betray her secrets. She is cunning, manipulative—but she is not Kira. She has some of the personality needed, but she will never be Kira simply because she does not have the ambition.

All her powers were used not to clear the world of criminals, but to secure a better hold on Light himself. She craved the power Light possessed; it was obsession that a young woman had foolishly deemed as love. She backed him into a corner and he had watched as she manipulated his limbs, demanding dates and kisses. At the time he had wanted to kill her, just waiting for the moment when she slipped and the opportunity would be his. But even then, he had been unwillingly impressed by her sheer cunning.

His pride, however, refuses to let him seriously consider her for the position of his heir. One day, he will kill her, just so he can see the betrayal etched on her face as he leans down and whispers that no one can use him like she had—but that day will come later, not in the hospital, not yet. The first thing Light learned as Kira was patience. You have to wait for your enemies to slip before you strike. Every name he wrote started with a single ink black letter.

L Lawliet, Nate River, Naomi Misora…. There are so many names. So many names listed across his own mind—his victims, his guinea pigs, his sacrifices. He can still remember each one of them, their faces staring up at him behind black and white pictures. It weighs him down.

Ryuk once told him that no one possessed and used a Death Note as long as Light had; no one killed as many as Light had; no one came close to Kira's legacy. And Light finds that more wearying than he likes to admit. Even at mid twenties, he feels as old as his father. Sometimes, at night, he looks out of his window and wonders where his youth went. Is that the price of killing L? Hope is the last demon trapped inside Pandora's box, the worst demon of all. Is it hope, is it ambition—is it pride that drove him all those years ago?

Whatever it is, L's death has stripped him of it. That day, staring down at L's grave, he let out his final demon. Even as a ghost, L is far more powerful than his successors could ever have been. There was a day when Light went to L's grave, asking him if that was truly the best he could do. He imagined L stewing needlessly down beneath the earth, gritting his teeth slightly so no one but Light could see his irritation.

"Hikari… our Hikari. Isn't she beautiful, Light?" Misa smiles at him from the hospital bed; sweat drips down her face as he watches his eyes turn back to the present and to his daughter.

He blinks at the name, shuddering at Misa's blatant affection for him. He wanted nothing to do with the naming of the child—he let Misa be content in her pre-maternal fretting while Light contented himself to his own work.

Hikari—_light. _Somewhere, L is laughing.

"Hikari. Isn't that a bit redundant?" He looks at his daughter again, searching in vain for some sense of himself to cling to. And yet within her tiny, newborn face he finds nothing of his family—nothing of Misa, either. Just a small, helpless stranger.

"You said you liked it. I thought it was cute." Misa pouts in the bed, attempting once more to wrap him around her fingers. He says nothing, frowning slightly at the wriggling Hikari in his arms. _Shining_, really—the woman has no taste at all.

When Misa babbled about names, he almost, out of spite, suggested to name the unborn fetus L, or Ryuzaki. But he held his tongue on the off chance that Misa would believe he was serious. And who knew—perhaps at the time, he was serious. He no longer remembers, but thinking of the name Hikari, he almost wishes he had suggested it.

"It could be worse; she could be Light Junior."

Light, being of Germanic base, is technically neither feminine nor masculine, making it a perfectly acceptable name for a little girl. Of course, the whole point of Light's name is that his mother was creative enough to think of it. The effect is spoiled when Misa comes out of the blue, suggesting they dub their child a less inventive version of the exact same name.

Light tunes out Misa's laughter and the smiling nurses. He counts the seconds until he can leave. He wonders if they can see the tedium in his eyes, whether they can imagine just how bored he is by this place. He has a job to do. His life is wasting away before his eyes and he is stuck sitting in a hospital with a woman he mildly tolerates and will one day kill.

He almost pities the poor child whimpering in his arms—almost, but not quite.

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**Scourge's Note: Part one of a three-part why-God-why-are-my-oneshots-so-long fic. It happens to be a vague idea-slash-not-quite-crossover with Repo! The Genetic Opera (and here is where I _should _be saying "GO WATCH IT. IT'S GREAT. GNAR." But I'm not, because I didn't actually like it...).**

**Anyway, reviews would be neat. And much appreciated. And repaid with gratuitous thank-you's 'n stuff. :D  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Death Note or Repo! The Genetic Opera. And yes, this disclaimer is at the bottom. It's called creativity. Apparently, Carni is averse to this, but I say "WHY THE HECK NOT?" Because the bottom is better than the top.  
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	2. Chapter 2

_who art in Heaven_

He has been walking among them for an over an hour now, and he doesn't appear to be faltering. Somewhere in his city of death and fear, a scurrying pedestrian might pause and wonder: Who dares to walk among the ranks of the damned? (The stone angels do not wonder. They know.)

Tonight, his path leads him to another late-night wanderer. This one, however, comes on less amiable business. His eyes are bloodshot as he digs through the graves with a syringe in hand, glinting savagely.

The stone angels remember the Zydrate and how the corpses came flooding in—suddenly, Kira was thrown into action again. He was forced to deal with the drug dealers and the grave robbers, those who unsettled the dead and took advantage of the living. The population had nearly forgotten Kira's looming presence, despite the city of the damned beneath their feet. When the addictive and expensive painkiller began to circulate the streets, Kira was forced to pull out his notebook once more and use his slowly dusting mind to seek out the sinners that tormented him.

It reminded all of humanity's fickle nature—they would not steady under Kira's rule. Yes, the crime rate was lower, but he would always have to be there, lurking just out of sight, watching behind his one-way mirror. (And he must always remain the king of illusions and death, the one who possesses all the power of a malignant god within his pen-wielding hands.)

But this man, this grave robber, is one of the few who believes himself careful enough to escape the eyes of the slowly aging, slowly dying god. And he is unlucky enough to be caught in graveyard kingdom at night without flesh made of stone. Oh, how unfortunate, to be human in that place, on that night. Kira only has eyes for the living—what is a marble angel to the god of death? (The angels know this, and they are grateful. They do not want to face his wrath.)

Kira is looking for other things this night, and for the moment, he passes this grave robber by as his mind soars through his memories of old rivals, dead family, and the frayed thread that is slowly but surely running out.

_hallowed be Thy name_

His daughter still does not remind him of himself, and it frightens him more than anything. She is not Misa, either. She is something else, some enigma he has yet to name.

Hikari was such a dangerous name to give her—does Misa realize, even as she claps over his daughter's small achievements, what she had done to her? Misa exclaims that she is brilliant, as brilliant as her father, and Light wants to curse her stupidity. He sees his one possible heir toddling about on a colorful carpet and he wonders, _Can I truly hand all I've worked for to her?_ He knows she will grow, but will she be brilliant? Will she be all that he himself once managed to be?

After the baby is born, his servants and family flock towards them in congratulations. He sees the greed in Mikami's eyes, the possibilities that spin behind them. Hikari is a way to get closer to Light, a way to usurp his throne, his Achilles heel. Gods should not love, should not have children, and Light feels the world close in on him because of this new introduction.

Mikami was necessary; meeting Mikami face to face was necessary. It was painful, it was dangerous—but it was also necessary. How else was Nate River to die? How else could he have destroyed the task force? He had no choice in the matter, and yet, he still fervently wishes there were another road to take—perhaps the road in which L is his heir and he never fathers a child at all. It is a daydream that occupies his thoughts, a desperate fantasy in which he never met L's heirs, never seduced Takada, never used Mikami—in which it is just him and his world. In his dreams, Hikari does not exist at all.

His mother and sister applaud them, ready to be introduced into Hikari's life, ready to corrupt her, to make her soft.

Light's heir can not be loved. Love is a weakness; love will destroy his utopia.

Even as his mother hugs him with pride and joy, he knows he has to kill her. He has to kill all of them; if he is to have an heir, he will not let her be corrupted by the world. She has to be perfect. Hikari will have to be him, better than him, even…. Any less, and his world will fall apart.

It is a dream, a fragile dream blown of colorful glass. A single word out of place, and it is broken. He has to tread carefully, so as not to shatter it. It fills him with fear, looking into her small, blown-up features, wondering aloud, "Will you be good enough, Hikari? Can you live up to your name?"

Misa helps Hikari to stand and walk towards her father. A toothless grin stretches across her features. He wonders if he is supposed to feel something as he watches her. Isn't there supposed to be joy, tears, _love_?

He closes his eyes against such thoughts. Gods do not love; they can't afford the price. He has nothing left to lose. He lost his memories to Ryuzaki, his humanity to L, his family to Kira—what does he have left for Hikari? So he watches his daughter stumble towards him and he smiles, despite the fact that it means nothing to him. She stands, clinging to his knee for support and he leaves her there, his eyes returning to the open window. They say she inherited his eyes, but all he sees in their surface is his own stony reflection.

There are nights when he leaves Misa to speak softly to her; it is the only honesty he can manage. He has been an illusionist so long, he sometimes forgets the truth altogether, lost as he is in his own castle in the sky, watching the world pass by underneath.

He tells her in a low voice all that will be expected of her, all that she will be expected to sacrifice for him, for the world she will grow up in. He tells her that he pitied her because he will show her the world, then take it all away from her again, but she will still worship him for that first glimpse of paradise. He whispers her name and all its implications. Loneliness, isolation, and sheer brilliance will consume her until she felt as weary and weighted down as her own father, he tells her in the darkness.

He isn't as young as he used to be, as he pretends to be. His wife still sees the seventeen-year-old boy she fell in love with all those years ago. When she drags him off to her shootings and filming sets, she expects him to have the energy he did as a teenager. He feels like a wick rapidly burning away under time's clever hands, and Misa just can not see. She wants another child and Light has to wonder, is it worth it, is another possible heir worth it? He stares at Hikari and wonders what competition would do to her. Competition destroyed Mello and Near; he won't have his heir suffer the same fate.

He cannot pretend to be interested any longer. Misa demands his full attention when he has none to give. The world no longer revolves around her, and he begins to wonder when it will be time to remove her altogether.

He has no qualms against murdering his family. Why should he hesitate before killing his wife? The attention she squanders upon his heir will only give her the wrong idea; it will give her something to cling to of the human world. Love will make her soft; love will make her weak; Kira will not survive love.

And so Misa drags Light into their closed bedroom, lavishing him with kisses, unaware of her own life spinning away beyond her control. In the end, he can trust no one to do his job for him. She has won, he realizes, and he hates her for it, hates someone for winning in his game. He is dying, his mind is falling apart, and Ryuk is laughing all the while (and he hates the Shinigami for it, too). One day, he'll kill her for winning. He feels it even as he grits his teeth. One day, she will pay the price for playing the game—pay just as dearly as Light himself.

_Thy kingdom come_

The grave robber should be wary of who he steals from. The angels watch as the nameless man defiles grave after grave, drawing the blue liquid into his glass vials, unaware of the god who condemns men like him. He ignores the signs warning him against grave robbing, against drug dealing, and so the angels expect to see him suffer the consequences. (And still he digs frantically, a smile pasted on his thin, angular face.)

The stone angels watch in silence. What can they tell him? That he is going to die? That Kira is going to stumble across him plunging knives into his (his, Kira's, because they all belong to him) victims, and kill him for it? What can they possibly tell him that he hasn't already guessed, or is too stupid to realize? They prefer to be silent where they can watch the erosion of time; they prefer to see Kira as he is and not how he seems. And to speak is to give up stone—and how can they ask themselves to pay that price for one human?

So they watch and say nothing, sorrow painted on their faces by the dead they guard and the living from which they guard their corpses—and they wonder how long it will be until this human joins their ranks.

_Thy will be done_

His daughter is glued to the television, staring at the news anchor through her wide amber eyes. A smile is painted across her face as she watches the elegant woman reveal yet another face to Kira—she is his latest spokesperson, the one to replace Takada, the one her father allows to represent himself to the greater world.

Hikari is older now, and with her age, the resemblance to her father grows. It is her eyes Light decides that take after him. But it is not her eyes he is looking for—it is the mind he is after. The television blares as he continues to write the names of the newly condemned, of all the men who continue to disobey him, even as he rules them with an iron fist. He is listening for the sound of Misa's voice, and he has to remind himself that she is gone. It does not bother him as much as it should, but he is too busy wasting away to remember luxuries like guilt.

He sits down beside her, watching her face glued to the television, and he wonders how socially inept he has made her. Kira needs charm, and while he doesn't need people, he needs to manipulate them in times of need. It is a balance between god and human that Kira needs to achieve and maintain. But he does not inform Hikari of his doubts, and instead watches the woman he placed on the throne of the media.

He does not particularly like her, but she is loyal and would eagerly die for him. He does not tell them his name when he meets them, these spokespeople. He learned his lesson from Takada. It is purely formal; he is tired of women and does not have the energy to toy with them any longer. He selects them, then casts them out of his life, telling them of their one job and then leaving them in the dust so he can return to his daughter.

"The Kira spokes-person is not so important as the world believes it is," he says finally, glancing sideways at his daughter, whose eyes are lit on fire with joy. "Yes, it is important that Kira is represented, and represented well, at that. But the post is created by the public out of greed, and it's one you should be wary of for that very reason; it's a very corruptible position, and you must always keep them in their place."

He remembers Demegawa very well—he remembers the disgust that he felt for the man as he watched his power slip away with his reputation. Light hates the Kira spokespeople more than he can possibly articulate. It is greed that makes them do it, and foolish worship that makes people believe they are prophets. There is nothing Light can do to stop it; he only makes the best of it and moves on with his life.

When he reflects on Takada, he cringes. She, like Mikami, was absolutely necessary, but he still hates her for it. She was consumed by greed and lust, and that is why he lit her on fire and imagined her agony as she burnt. He watched the world mourn for her, then eagerly fill her position with the next talking idol, his face for the world to see. Kira doesn't need a human face; Kira doesn't want a human face. Light knows that more than any human alive.

"Lady Sakura doesn't look that corrupted?" Though she is young, Hikari catches fast to Light's language, tripping to keep up with his intellect as he attempts to teach her everything he knows, every trick he learned along his path of justice. Her long black hair falls over her face as she turns to watch him, and with her childish features and expressions, she almost reminds him of L. (But L is long dead and he no longer watches eagerly for his shadow.)

"No, not yet, but she will be. The men will fall in line, begin offering her money, jewels, sex.... Humans are base, fickle creatures. If I continue to maintain my distance, my shadow will fade and then I'll have to find a replacement." He has already warned Hikari of being attached to the television's idol—he has warned her that one day, he will kill Lady Sakura regardless of any affection Hikari may harbor for her. He does not repeat himself, even to his daughter; he merely tells things as they are. If she needs the information, she will remember it in time—but for the moment, she is happier believing in her lies.

"I don't think so, Light; I think this one will be different than the others." She turns from him to Sakura's shining face once more, and Light says nothing. He loathes repeating himself and he knows she does not want to hear. She was not there for Takada, she was not there for Demegawa, she will not understand. She still has her childish fairy-tales to cling to.

Instead, he says the next thing on his mind. "I want you to know what to look for when picking a spokes-person. It must be someone the world respects—elegant, poised, well-read and good looking. Choose anyone who doesn't meet that criteria and Kira will fall, so be very careful." He watches her rather than his chosen idol; he prefers Hikari's childish nature to Sakura's too-eager smile. "I pick women because more people can relate to them. It will be your decision, however, what you choose to do."

He stops talking, and sighs as he notices how she practically hums with fascination of the outside world. He doesn't let her out much, he doesn't let her talk to others much—what would they say to her? How could they influence her? Light fears the outside's affects on his daughter. He would rather introduce her to the outside world later, when she is more prepared. Is he the menacing father keeping his daughter locked away in a tower for all the world to pity? No, he doesn't believe that of himself.

(Ryuk laughs over his shoulder, unseen by the world and all its inhabitants as he whispers in Light's ear.)

Ryuk is Light's second shadow, his guardian angel, his grim reaper. Light has found Ryuk to be his one true companion—humanity is fickle, he reminds himself. Ryuk is far from human, just as Light finds himself to be. Hungering for apples as always, Ryuk tells him what a horrible person Light is, how cruel Light is, how what Light is doing will destroy his daughter.

Light says nothing. Ryuk is a part of the world he created, the one filled with shadows and death, paper and pen. Light finds that world fading from his grasp. He wonders what he is becoming—no one has held the Death Note for so long…. What are the consequences? Can he pay the price?

Ryuk is after his entertainment, just as Light is chasing his future. Both their ideas point them towards one small, dark-haired child. In that flash, he feels his old self whispering in his other ear with glee. That is the true Kira, the one that isn't eroding away with L's bones. Ruling his kingdom destroyed that Kira long before Light took his place, and now his ghost watches his heir in disappointment, looking for a way to rise again. They need L again, they need the challenge again, they need the world in tumult again.

But L and his name are long dead, and Light is tired of searching for his ghost.


	3. Chapter 3

_on Earth_

He moves between his masks with less ease than he used to, the stone angels note. He is trapped in one face—or perhaps he is losing himself and refuses to don another. He is no longer the innocent, but neither is he the monster. He is something caught between transformations. He has become a changeling, his hands clutching at the pens in desperation while his face is stretched in human pain. He cannot survive half and half as he tries to walk through his city of the dead.

He has a winged shadow, he has become his winged shadow—he still dreams of wings when he stares at his hopeless utopia. He wonders at what time he should have died; he feels it in his mind, the day he should have left. But his world needs him. They need his eyes, his winged shadow. They need a reminder, and he curses the fact that he is all but useless. He curses his fate and his shadow—his masks are tarnished and torn in half. How is he to sew them together once again?

_as it is in heaven_

He makes her kill her first criminal when she turns twelve.

She is horrified and silent. Her amber eyes are wide in fear and hatred; she hates him just as he hates her. They understand each other, Kira and his apprentice, and they want to kill each other for that understanding. She is growing taller; her dark hair reaches her waist and nearly covers her eyes, but he can see the loathing burning inside them. She trembles before him as he hands her the notebook and whispers, Write.

She is not a murderer.

She believes she is stronger than he is, that she will be better than she is, and that one day she'll find the hole in his prison and laugh as he lies there, dying. But they both know that she is lying to herself. She loves him too much to watch him die… and she hates him for it.

He smiles and says nothing. He is mostly silent in her life. She knows what he is going to say—she always knows. Just as he can hear Ryuk's laughter following him in the night, she can hear his advice rattling in her head. She watches the Notebook paper with a doomed expression; she listens to Ryuk's wild howling proclamations of Kira's return.

Light can't help but sigh at those words. He knows they are a lie, but Ryuk is looking for a rise in Hikari, not in a broken, weary Light.

He wants her to kill a Zydrate dealer. They are everywhere these days, and he warns her that she'll have to get used to it. She doesn't want to get used to it; she doesn't want to be him; but it is what she is rapidly becoming. There is stone in her eyes, and he knows that one day she will kill him. Perversely, he is glad.

Ryuk is laughing as he watches her right hand stray toward the empty page; her eyes have turned to flint in their anger and he can already feel his painful death, the death he will receive when she steals the Notebook from his clutches and gives him exactly what he wants, what he expects from her. He wants her to best him. She knows this as well, and lengthens it out for him.

She scratches in the name and turns away from the Notebook, her eyes clouding when Light's watch hits forty seconds.

She says nothing. What is there to say? That she hates him? He's heard it from her lips more than once. That he killed her mother? They both know. That goes without saying. They have nothing left but their hatred and Ryuk's laughter. He warned her—standing over her crib, he warned her. But she had been too foolish to listen, and now she is paying for it.

"Can I go now, Father?" She calls him father, now, out of respect and hatred, and he admires her for it. Hikari lives up to her name. She is cold and dark and she will be a great Kira. She will surpass him in time; she will curse his name, as he cursed L's. And perhaps, his shadow will be just as great as the detective's.

He does not tell her to leave roses on his grave after she kills him, or to give him a grave at all. He doesn't care; he knows how deeply he has affected her, and that she will never escape his shadow, just as he has never escaped L's. He still feels the hand-cuffs, the cold, dark eyes locked with his, and he knows that Hikari is helpless to her fate. He asks nothing of her, only nodding slightly and watching her trail out of the room. He is her entire world and she hates him for it, but he had predicted that long before she could talk. She hates him and loves him, her amber eyes locked with his own.

Somewhere, he senses his lifespan nearing forty seconds and he tells the hands to wait, stall; she still has so much to learn from him. She has learned wrath, hatred, obsession, manipulation… but she has yet to learn sacrifice. He listens to her as she curses and bangs against the walls, knowing there are truly no silent places in this house but cursing him all the same. He smiles and stares out at the night.

Soon, he thinks, soon, I'll have my wings.

_give us this day our daily bread_

Kira stands half-formed before the grave robber. His eyes wide in curiosity; he tilts his head to the side as he watches the man dig through the grave. He smiles, and then scowls. He is trapped in his emotions, not sure where to place himself and deciding on nowhere. And so, he stands and watches the grave robber with eyes fixed on the dirt-covered hands.

The grave robber senses himself being watched and stops to stare back at the strange, golden-eyed stranger. He sees the enigma that Kira possess, trapped as he is beneath dark sky and city lights. He gawks openly until Kira has the sense to open his mouth and speak, ignoring his laughing shadow—if only for a moment.

"What's your name, grave robber?" he asks with the bitterness barely concealed in his voice.

The angels cringe as they look at him once again, and wonder just how close he is to fading. He is nearly transparent beneath the moonlight, his amber eyes burning in on themselves; he is drawing out his death as long as he can. He was never meant to live as an old man. His mind is withering far faster than his body could imagine. His death flies on wings of starlight, dancing behind his shadow.

"Jack, Goliath, Death, Satan…. Kira, perhaps? Maybe I am L. I am the stranger and the night wind." He smiles, his dark eyes baleful under the changeling's gaze. It is a challenge, a riddle, and despite himself, the aging god smiles, distantly amused by the stranger's answer—if not somewhat annoyed.

"You are a liar," responds Kira with the same smile, staring down in pity at the body the thief has chosen to defile. He looks up at the dealer once again (and the man has at least four inches on him, and probably a good seventy pounds of muscle). This time, with his emotions carefully hidden behind his fraying masks, he says, "Funny that you should chose the once and future king, for your drugs…." (And he trails off, pauses, loses connection with the thought.)

He recognizes the rotting flesh even now; he can practically see his dark eyes and his percentages as they stare through each other. The corpse does not make him laugh or cry as he would expect; he feels nothing at all, nothing but emptiness, the wretched hollowness that has consumed him.

Inside, the stone angels flee from his despair and the nothingness that is eating him alive. But they are stone, and so they stay to watch him—they watch him hesitate over the grave with nothing in his arms but emptiness. He has nothing left to say; time was his best teacher, and it had killed him for it.

"And who are you supposed to be?" asks the grave robber, losing his sense of humor at the emptiness in the slight, skinny man's eyes, at the words flying from his thoughts like caged birds.

Kira looks up at the man with pity. He pities his world more than he pities himself—he pities the men and women he has crippled, but he will not hesitate to sacrifice them for his vision. He has killed so many, the ground weeps tears of blood.

"God."

And the shadow dances with glee for Kira's last night on stage, his final performance before he withers into the shadows. It cackles madly at the delivered lines, watching as Light paints his mask onto his face with precision born of experience. Is L laughing or sneering—is he watching at all? Light doesn't know or care. He will not have roses on his grave because he doesn't expect them; his daughter will never shed a tear because tears will get her killed. His audience consists of two, and the stone angels shield their eyes in sorrow.

_and forgive our trespasses_

He thinks she means to annoy him when she lures men in the street, promising them all they desire in a single glance. She knows nothing of the world of men; yet already, she rules it with an iron fist, and she smiles every time she meets her father's gaze as if to show him her power.

_Look what I can do, Daddy, look how I can make them beg. _

She never sleeps with them; she finds them just as repulsive as Light does. But she leads them on as she saunters down the marketplace, and Light can do nothing but watch with mild annoyance. He says nothing of disapproval, knowing that she will never lose her dignity to human nature—he merely smiles as she rubs against another male body and doesn't turn to see the prey's eyes following her greedily down the street.

Ryuk finds it hilarious; Light finds it irritating; Hikari finds it completely necessary. It is her battle cry, her own precious notes to the faceless detective L. 'L, do you know Gods of Death love apples?' She is toying with him as he toyed with Ryuzaki, and it is keeping her from falling apart. She hears his disapproval etched into her brain—do not lose yourself to men, drop them, then leave them crying in the dirt. But she does not hear his silence; she believes she knows him.

She has not seen all of his masks.

"Oh, Father, can we stay a little longer?" she asks as they pass by a bar.

_How far can I go, Father, before you stop me?_

She thinks she knows him. He'll let her go as far as she wants. It will only be afterward that she realizes what she has lost over a simple power struggle with her father. She will gain nothing from the world of men—only cheap sex and cheaper abortions, if she isn't careful about it.

Still he says nothing, tilting his head towards the sky, listening to the people haggle through the markets and Ryuk's incessant goading. It is almost peaceful, the state of mind, and he wishes he could stay in that crowded marketplace, away from his notebooks and graveyards.

Her gaze darkens as she senses his mood. She wants him to suffer; she wants to watch him bleeding on the pavement. She wants his heart so she can crush it under her bare feet. She wants to watch him twist in agony as she watches his beating heart flutter madly in her hand.

Ryuk sees these unspoken thoughts pass between them in a single gaze—he can't help but think L has returned from the world of the dead. For who else knew Light's soul so well?

They stand among the crowd in their silent stand-off. It is not petty rebellion. It is a play for power. Hikari does not want freedom, as she tells Light within the dark halls of their castle; she wants power over him. She wants him dangling from the puppet strings. She wants to watch him beg for mercy at her own pen-wielding hands. Her eyes, so similar to her father's, gleam with this desire even as she watches her men pant after her with a drunken eagerness that disgusts them both.

He watches them through the corner of his eye, smiling as he watches their hopeful, lustful expressions. Sometimes, he sees the world through the eyes of his dancing shadow—sees how pathetic they are. Sometimes, he wonders if they worth his time. Were they worth his youth and his ambitions? And sometimes, he can laugh at his life as if he were a Shinigami himself, his red eyes alight with delight as he watches his utopia struggle to perfection. Drugs, grave robbers, heirs—he could laugh at them all.

So even as his daughter whispers lies to her poor victims, he laughs and shakes his head. He is not impressed. She will have to do better than that to own his soul, and she knows this, even as she fights to own him.

You weak old man, she thinks, you are broken; you have been dying for years, now. And you expect me to bow to you? You dying god? You failing, miserable, dying god? I will never bow to you. I will never grovel on my knees to _you_, lost in your shadows and past. Tell me, are my eyes as terrifying as your L's? Do I make you cry out in the night as you feel the noose around your neck?

Sometimes, Light understands Ryuk's desire to laugh at how pathetic it is, how far he has fallen from his pedestal.

_as we forgive them that trespass against us_

The grave robber is pale, unnaturally so. His dark hair trails over his shoulders, tangled and unclean, but Kira does not seem to notice the man's appearance. He looks instead to the pile of tools next to the corpse in the grave robber's arms. A frown creases his aging face.

The stone angels remember why he created this grave yard city, all those years ago. It was a challenge to the world: Usurp me, he said, and prevail when they did not.

They are his victims, the bodies of all his victims, moved so he might have a reminder for the world.

No one mourns the bodies; no one visits the angels besides Kira himself. In all the city of the dead, the grave robber and Kira himself are the only ones who dare to walk upon holy ground. The stone angels wonder at the grave robber's stupidity, or bravery, that he would dare to tread on the earth of the gods.

But Light Yagami is smiling; there is a fire in his eyes as he moves towards the grave robber and the corpse. The spotlight hangs overhead as his smile grows, and he is god again, he is Kira, he is the night and the shadow. And the grave robber backs away. He must wonder just what evil spirit he invited on sacred ground.

"Once upon a time, there was a dark and powerful god who called himself Kira. He took over the world and killed all those who stood against him. How does the story end? What is the moral of this sad tale, I wonder? And so, Jack, Kira, L… God… can you tell me how my story is to end?"

The grave robber backs away from the approaching actor, afraid of the spotlight that glows around him with a light brighter than the sun. Kira is burning brightly one final time, circling his prey with hands held loosely at his sides, fingers twitching for the pens contained in his pockets. He is smiling, he is laughing madly as he watches the grave robber defile a place no men even dare to touch.

"Are you looking for a hit?" asks the grave robber with an ironic smile. He thinks he's seen this actor before. He is every insane drug addict, he knows, begging for a drop of the glowing blue liquid that rests within the small glass vial. He thinks he knows what Kira is, and the dying, fading man finds this hilarious as he watches his shadow dance its rhythm-less, long-limbed dance.

"A hit? How impressive, God, how… ironic." His amber eyes are burning in fire that the stone angels can't remember seeing before. Those are Kira's eyes that burn like dying stars, not Light's. "So that is to be my end. My noble sacrifice ends with you, Jack. God. Kira…."

The laughter—the stone angels can't stand the laughter of this insane man who is tearing himself apart with his own bare hands, laughing as his blood seeps through the ground to rain on his very own sacrifices. He is no longer a human, but some terrible angry god. Which mask is he wearing this night? Which face can contain all the horror and fey nature of the one bears on his features? Is it his real face or an illusion? What is Light Yagami?

"It is the twenty-first century… cure…." The drug dealer's face lights as he draws in another victim, but the stone man turns to the grave robber and shakes his head with a smile, laughing as he does so.

"And this is my cure, God, my twenty-first century cure. Look at the corpses beneath your feet. Do you know why they are there? I'm sorry, but Jack isn't good enough; should you wish to join their ranks, I will need your name." His face stills. He is not acting, he is dying. His eyes widen and he is choking on his words. He falls to the ground and looks up at the grave robber with that smile still painted across his lips; the angels sees his strings, he sees his strings. And still he is stammering, stuttering, choking on the words he refuses to let loose.

The Notebook is far more powerful than human motive. They aren't his words, and yet they are. The Notebook is his mind, his blood; his very soul was sold to the lined pages of death. He is laughing as his mind is torn apart by the words he refuses to say—he is dying. His stitching is torn and his stuffing is pouring out.

You will not own me. You cannot hold me. You will not take my soul. You will steal my eyes. You will not be my mind. You have no idea of what I can do to you, little girl—I can destroy you; I can take your heart and break it in two. I am not your broken old man. YOU WILL NOT OWN ME.

His head falls to the earth and he closes his eyes, tasting the blood against his lips, and to the grave robber he looks like death himself.

"Ryuk, give me my eyes. I want my eyes, Ryuk. If you cannot give me wings, then give me my goddamn eyes."

His shadow is laughing; the god is kneeling before the grave robber, hands outstretched, his head now raised to stare the robber full in the face. There is no smile now—the mask is gone. There is nothing but broken pride and bitterness that swarms the graveyard. He feels his life receding through the darkness, and it is agony as the Shinigami laughs, stealing Kira's pride, stealing his eyes. He is falling through the abyss, he is dying—a knife is plunging through his heart. He cries through the night and watches the fear on the grave robber's face as Kira opens his new red eyes.

Give me my eyes, give me my wings…. Give me my goddamn wings.

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**Scourge's Note: Did I say three? I meant three chapter breaks. Which would mean four parts. -/can't count- And now, a poem about how we treat reviewers.  
**

**Review, review**

**and we shall forever love you**

**and buy you pies**

**before you die(s)**

**and, er, sing you songs**

**so you won't go alone**

**...Scourge wrote this one, and it's the reason Carni usually does them.  
**


	4. Chapter 4

_lead us not into temptation_

Light feels himself drifting along the winds of his own past.

L, Misa, Naomi Misora…. They all float about in his mind, and he feels compelled to watch as they glide through the air. His window consumes him; it is the view outside that fascinates. How could he have ever imagined the city of graves, the dystopic utopia of buried corpses? He finds himself glued to the glass the way his daughter had once been glued to the television, and he can't turn away because it is beautiful, because it is horrible, because he sees nothing but a lie.

It does not come as a shock when his own daughter attempts to seduce him, but then, he isn't exactly expecting it, either. She calls his name and watches him with a lower head, her amber eyes burning beneath her dark hair. He stands there, staring at her, wondering how long she has been a mirror portraying his own reflection. He himself crafted that glass, blown it into the perfect, most reflective shape—he remembers the fire's touch against his hands.

He watches with an empty expression as his daughter stands so that she is inches from him. He looks down at the bitterness that twists across her face. She doesn't even try to look as if she enjoys it; she believes truth is the slave-driver that will destroy him. Truth will break him to the ground and make him bleed for her.

She stands before him, cringing before she closes in to press against him. Light has nowhere to back up; he is against the window. But his memories beckon to him beyond the glass and are far more tempting than his own daughter.

"Are you attempting to seduce me, Hikari?" he asks as she waits for the usual hints of lust to show on him, as if he is one of her drunken barmen, reduced to ashes with a mere glance. She has forgotten where she got those eyes, where she got her own name….

"Confess, Light. Tell me your weaknesses, your fears, your desires…. Show me your true face." She is smirking now, and he recognizes this expression—he once wore it.

He is smiling, deepening the contact as he feels Kira rise from where he was sulking, wasting away under the tedium of ruling the world. He feels the power, the pen, the ink; he can practically taste the blood on his tongue. He hears Lind L. Taylor once again; he sees L falling to the tiled floor; he sees Near's pale face it freezes in pain.

"Power, death, wings…." He laughs as he watches her try to back away from him. She asked to see his face, his nightmarish features. He holds her in place and draws her closer, so that he can reach over and whisper in her ear, one hand gliding across her back. "You should know better, Hikari—push me so far and I break. After all, you are young and have never seen the true face of Kira. So what do you think, little girl? Do you like my face? Does it make you fall to the earth in need? Tell me you want me, Hikari. Tell me you want my death, my corpse, my heart…." He breaks into a round of mad laughter. Kira rears his head, only to stare down his apprentice. "You have no idea what you have awakened, little girl. Some things are best left forgotten. You may forget Kira, but he will never forget your face or your pretty little name, Hikari Yagami."

She does not struggle—she knows better. She does not know _him, _but she does know better. Don't fight, don't run; if she doesn't move, she is invisible. He can't see her through those golden eyes, and Light smiles and continues to hold her in place, enjoying himself far more than he should.

"_You_ are not Kira, Hikari Yagami. Confess. Tell me, do I frighten you? Do you still have nightmares about me looming over you, interrogating you, murdering you? Tell me, tell me what you fear Hikari, and _I will give it to you_." He is grinning the way he did when he was seventeen, when he was still fit to hold the world in his hands. He is putting his apprentice back into her place with ease; she really has no idea what she is doing, and he shows her what happens when you dance with the devil.

She is shaking. Her eyes are wide and her breathing is unsteady. She hates him and she loves him, and he loves her for it.

"I hate you, Father. I hate you so much," she whispers, shivering against him, her own amber eyes wide with fear as she refuses to cry. Crying is a weakness and he will pounce on any weakness she gives him.

He pulls back so he can see her face, hidden as it is behind the shroud of straight, black hair. She says the words as if they make her special, as if her hatred is different than L's, than Misa's, than anyone he has ever met. It annoys him. What makes her so privileged? She is a child no longer; she should not act so spoiled.

"That's my girl," he says before releasing her and returning with ease to his window.

_but deliver us from evil_

It is a paragraph that destroys him. She checks it more than once as she writes it, making sure it is perfect. She watches him stare out the window of their home, wondering which one of them is truly trapped in this place—but she ignores those thoughts as she stews over him. He consumes her, he fascinates her, he disgusts her. He used to be a bitter old man. What is he now? Is he a god? Is he the devil? Or is he what she always imagined him to be….

His name fits the paragraph like clockwork. She can see his death. She wants to be there, wants to watch as he falls, wants to laugh and say, I told you so. In some ways, she envies that dead detective, the one that waits outside his window, the one with the dark eyes and handcuffs. He consumes Light's thoughts—always on L. What if the name returned? Would Hikari be good enough? Would small, stupid Hikari be able to best the greatest detective in the world? She wants the detective's blood on her hands almost as much as she wants Light's.

(She has never met him, she has never seen him. Why does she want him?)

She hopes it is her face he remembers when he writes the grave robber's name on the parchment; she hopes that it is her eyes he sees while his heart squeezes out its final breath.

L does not kill him, Hikari does. She is the one who bests him. The detective is dead, Light is dead; Hikari is the winner. And yet, she still sees the faceless detective hanging over her shoulder, laughing at her efforts.

She is no stranger to L. She remembers Light's games—the cold white rooms, the handcuffs, the clank of her chains as she sat weeping in her chair. Please let it end—please, God, let it end. I don't know Kira; I am not Kira; you can't make me believe I'm Kira. In the white room, Light was gone. It is not even Kira she faced. It was something far worse than either of them—a nightmare, a demon. She sobbed before him and he did nothing. He did not smile; he did not budge. He looked at her through her father's amber eyes and asked the question again.

He walks differently in those games, he speaks differently—it is as if he is an entirely different person come to possess Light's body.

She is afraid of L, afraid of his shadow, of the way he can _possess_ people, of the way he pull their strings even in death. She is always watching for him. As a child, he was the dark room, waiting there, microphone in hand ready with the questions. She has never met L in person, only in nightmares. She has to remind herself of what Light always says.

There is no Heaven, there is no Hell. There is only nothingness. Once humans die, they don't come back. How could he come back, this monster from her father's past?

Stop haunting me, she tells him as she clutches her blankets to her. You are my father's ghost—go find him. You don't want me.

He says nothing, he does nothing. She can never see his face—only his dark, curling hair.

She isn't sure if his ghost will die with her father in the graveyard, if, when Light accepts the eyes and writes down the man's name, L will drift away from the world of the living. She only stares at her watch with dark gold eyes, watching the second hand tick her father's life span away.

"Check-mate, Light Yagami."

_for Thine is the Kingdom_

The stone angels watch as she wanders through their ranks.

She is not her father. Her path is driven and there is thunder brewing in her eyes. She is the dark angel he used to be, Kira reborn again through his heir. They wondered if Light Yagami succeeded or failed in his endevours. They aren't entirely sure as they watch her march past them with a Shinigami hovering over her shoulder—Ryuk, who lived through the life of one Kira and into another, practically as much a part of their world as Kira himself.

She finds him after searching, but of course, she does not recognize the grave or the grave robber who lies dead at her feet. She takes the glass vial from his closed hand, watching the blue liquid glow. She glances down at her father once again before smiling, and the angels remember another Kira standing over a different grave. They remember the emptiness and wonder how it has lasted all these years. How could such nothingness last?

_Hyuk_.

She turns to see the Shinigami looking down at her father in mad amusement. She frowns as she forces herself to look away, to remind herself that the world does not revolve around Light Yagami. He is dead. She broke his pride by making him forfeit his own eyes to kill a man he cared nothing about. She left him to die in mediocrity, along with all the other criminals he had placed beneath the earth. This is her revenge, and still she grits her teeth and blocks out the laughter.

She ignores Ryuk, as she has always ignored him. He is the audience in her life, never to be acknowledged as she moves through the names piled before her. He is her father's shadow, her father's companion, and she can't help but wonder what he sees when he looks at her. Whatever it is, she finds it frightening. He laughs at her as if waiting for her to crack and face him. She doesn't want to know what he sees; she doesn't want her father's secrets.

She remembers the way he would talk to Ryuk as if he were the only one to truly understand him. They had their own word games, memories…. She remembers watching him, fascinated at the way they hardly had to speak to each other—and yet it was as if they had gone through an entire story without her. Who is Raye Penber? she would ask. Who is Mikami Teru? Who are these ghosts that haunt you, Light Yagami? He would turn from the Shinigami and stare at her, debating whether she had the right to know what lurked in his mind. An old friend, was usually the answer.

He lied. He had no friends. He only had angry ghosts and a clown-faced demon.

"Damn you, Light Yagami," she spits, then turns away from his body. She refuses to bury him. Why should she? She wants the whole world to see him rot.

See, he is just as human as the rest of us, this dead god.

_and the power and the glory_

Humanity is a curious thing.

It is like a fragile dream. Speak the word and it is broken. A butterfly with wings of painted glass—golden, it flies through the sunlight, casting a rainbow spectrum across the flowers it lands upon. Beautiful and terrifying in its weakness—a terrifying nightmare or a beautiful dream? Was Light Yagami a dream or a nightmare produced through a series of deaths, a Notebook, a God of Death, and, of course, through the detective named L, the ruthless twelfth letter? (The letter that disguises itself through layers of screens and false identities—a gothic L, a notebook, an apple.)

What happens when the dreamer wakes up?

_for ever and ever_

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**12/2011: Hey, so, looks like there's now a TVTropes page for this. So, uh, check it out if you're interested? XD**

**Scourge's Note: Wewt, it's all complete. Thanks for staying on for the ride, those of you that did. :D It'd be quite nice if you'd let us know of your thoughts on said ride—should we buy shag carpet seat covers, or stick with leather? And I tend to prefer bumper stickers that insult previous presidents; Carni, however, has this dastardly affection for purple front mirror dice. Ew. ER, I MEAN, REVIEW, IF YOU WANT.**

**Disclaimer: This disclaimer does not feel like disclaiming. Please go look elsewhere for a statement about how Death Note doesn't belong to fanfiction writers and how Light Yagami is epicsauce, even while being a broken old guy. **


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